Just thought I'd share that I bought a new iMac! I had a 24" Core 2 Duo one from 2007, and it was getting a little slow, especially on 1.5GB of RAM. I bought the latest one earlier this week - the 21.5 inch iMac with the 2.7 Ghz processor, 4GB RAM and 1TB SATA hard drive. Was toying with the idea of getting a SSD as well but in the end decided that it was not big enough and too expensive.

It's a whole lot faster - everything is snappy (probably partly because everything is fresh), apps open quickly. In particular, lightroom doesn't feel as clunky when navigating around, which is great. Very happy in that regard.

Size wise, it's a small step down from 24". I'm still getting used to it - the resolution is the same, but it's just smaller physically. I specifically chose the smaller size as I found the 24" a bit too big - like you almost had to sit further back to take it all in. I think the new size is much more comfortable for desktop use.

It sports a Thunderbolt port which has a theoretical transfer rate of 10Gbps but I don't have any Thunderbolt accessories so I can't try it out yet. Down the track I will also definitely upgrade the RAM - it can take a maximum of 16GB.

I chose not to do use the migration assistant to bring all my apps and settings across - choosing instead to manually install only the apps I needed, and copying across the relevant data. I'm happy with that decision - slightly more work but no hidden junk lurking around from 4 years ago.

New, in 4 years? Mine is a 25yr old spectrum and still going strong.
Congratulations, but it is still a lot of cash. Can you sell the old one?

The trouble is they make the computers faster and then make programs that use the extra speed, therefore slowing them down again.
I have the angry birds app on my iPod and the battery goes down in about 1.5 hours when using that app. Without it the battery lasts around 6 hours. :|

I bought a new Dell XPS 8300 when my wife's computer died. She will get my current system to use it for e-mails, internet and office aps. I thought an extensive help from geeks at DP review. It was very instructive and anybody thinking of buying an inexpensive system which is good for photography could find use in here. Here is a link: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/readfl...=38373103. Do not be discouraged by the initial questions I posed in my ignorance and read on, as my understanding improved. I would have spent considerably more without the advice. Perhaps as much as Julian, although probably less. Let me know what you think. The computer is still sitting in the box. I will report back in about a week, if there is interest. Dell monitor (30" Ultrasharp) is great, although it was a fiddle to bring the brightness down to 100 cd/m2 - the brightness I use for color managing my system to gwet a good match with the paper brightens.

By the way, Dells are great for the support - my wife's previous laptop had a problem with one of the keys sticking, and they sent someone out the next day, and replaced the entire keyboard assembly on the spot.

The guts of today's computers are mostly good enough for photo editing, if you have enough RAM and there is not much point putting money in them beyond some fairly low sum, if photo editing is the most resource intensive application you do. On other hand, large, high resolution monitor is handy for photo editing like noise reduction, sharpening, contrast and brightness adjustment etc. Normally, you have to zoom in/out all the time, but with 30" you basically see the image the size I print, so that you have a good idea how your noise will look like on the final print without zooming. Occasionally, I missed things on the 24" monitor. They were visible if I looked more carefully, but I did not and I had to reprint. With a bigger monitor, such glitches are much more readily apparent. Admittedly, the cost of reprinting is much lower than the cost differential between 24" and 30" monitor, but my comfort level about "what you see is close to what you get" is increased. I know that 30" monitor is an unnecessary (but useful) luxury.